cuff

• IPA^(key): /kʌf/
• Rhymes: -ʌf

From Middle English cuffe, coffe (“glove, mitten”), of obscure origin. Perhaps from Old English cuffie (“hood, cap”), from Medieval Latin cofia, cofea, cuffa, cuphia (“helmet, headdress, hood, cap”), from Frankish *kuf(f)ja (“headdress”), from Proto-Germanic *kupjō (“cap”). Cognate with Middle High German kupfe (“cap”).

cuff (plural cuffs)

1. (obsolete) glove; mitten
2. the end of a shirt sleeve that covers the wrist
3. the end of a pants leg, folded up

• shoot one's cuffs

• cufflinks
• turnup
• off-the-cuff

cuff (third-person singular simple present cuffs, present participle cuffing, simple past and past participle cuffed)

1. (transitive) To furnish with cuffs.
2. (transitive) To handcuff.

1520, “to hit”, apparently of North Germanic origin, from Norwegian kuffa (“to push, shove”) or Swedish kuffa (“to knock, thrust, strike”). Related to Low German kuffen (“to box the ears”), German kuffen (“to thrash”). Perhaps related also to Swedish skuffa (“to push, shove”). More at scuff, shove, scuffle.

cuff (third-person singular simple present cuffs, present participle cuffing, simple past and past participle cuffed)

1. (transitive) To hit, as a reproach, particularly with the open palm to the head; to slap.
   • Shakespeare

     I swear I'll cuff you, if you strike again.

   • Dryden

     They with their quills did all the hurt they could, / And cuffed the tender chickens from their food.

2. (intransitive) To fight; to scuffle; to box.
   • Dryden

     While the peers cuff to make the rabble sport.

3. To buffet.
   • Tennyson

     cuffed by the gale

cuff (plural cuffs)

1. A blow, especially with the open hand; a box; a slap.
   • Spenser

     Snatcheth his sword, and fiercely to him flies; / Who well it wards, and quitten cuff with cuff.

   • Hudibras

     many a bitter kick and cuff

cuff (plural cuffs)

1. (Scotland) The scruff of the neck.